“The positivist picture of the structure of scientific theories is now widely rejected. But the underlying idea that scientific theories are primarily designed to predict and explain claims about what we observe remains enormously influential, even among the sharpest critics of positivism.” (p. 304)
“Phenomena are detected through the use of data, but in most cases are not observable in any interesting sense of that term. Examples of data include bubble chamber photographs, patterns of discharge in electronic particle detectors and records of reaction times and error rates in various psychological experiments. Examples of phenomena, for which the above data might provide evidence, include weak neutral currents, the decay of the proton, and chunking and recency effects in human memory.” (p. 306)
“Our general thesis, then, is that we need to distinguish what theories explain (phenomena or facts about phenomena) from what is uncontroversially observable (data).” (p. 314)
Bogen, J., & Woodward, J. (1988). Saving the phenomena. The Philosophical Review, XCVII(3), 303–352.